


The Ocean And The Shore

by hamiltrashed



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Love, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Stiles actually loves Derek too but Derek is a worrying moron, We love him anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:38:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamiltrashed/pseuds/hamiltrashed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles could Be Something, and Derek is Damaged, and that’s not something that can be changed, not least because the alliteration sounds too good to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ocean And The Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, lots of feelings and some furiously fast typing had me writing this in like 30 minutes so I apologise if it doesn't make sense and is in fact just a product of my tired mind and is actual shit.

So here's the thing: Stiles has said that he thinks Derek is his Emerald City, his somewhere-over-the-rainbow, the cream in his fucking coffee, perfection at its _most_ perfect. Derek thinks Stiles is insane. Delusional even. Because if Derek is anything, it’s maddening, frustrating, tiring, and he knows it, knows he’s kind of just terrible, but Stiles has some weird fascination with him anyway. Derek wants him to stop thinking the world of him because there are just, y’know, _better people_ to think the world of, but Derek is loath to tell him that because honestly, he wants it while he has it, because he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Stiles to see how entirely wrong he is for him.

On the other hand, Stiles actually _is_ perfect, and he’s so unaware of it, and it’s bizarre because how could he not know the way he shakes Derek’s bones? How could he not know the sweetness of his own mouth or the lovely blueprints of his own body? How could he not understand the heady feeling that washes over Derek every single time Stiles walks into a room? And Stiles likes music, but he can’t recognise a drum when it’s Derek’s heart slamming against his ribcage. He doesn’t know these things, and really, it’s probably because Derek hasn’t told him, but he sort of fears what kind of response he’ll get.

Because after all, they’re just having sex. Kind of all the time, but y’know, it’s sex, and sex is just sex, it’s not anything else. But also, it kinda is, because Derek is in-fucking-love with Stiles. Stiles doesn’t know how he buries his face in his pillow after he leaves, just to keep breathing him in. And when they’re together, he holds onto him tightly because he’s afraid of losing it all, losing what they don’t have. Stiles doesn’t know that. And he doesn’t know how Derek counts down the seconds to the end of each night together, simply so he won’t feel the abruptness of Stiles' departure.

Also high on the List Of Things Stiles Doesn’t Know is the way Derek loves how Stiles says his name with reverence, like it’s a prayer. And Derek says Stiles' name like a prayer too, a tiny prayer that it won’t end, not just yet. They pray for different reasons. Derek mostly prays that the night will not fall, because it falls so heavy every time.

Derek really wants him to know all of this. He wants him to know everything, but he’s terrified of losing Stiles when Stiles realises how very fucked up he is, how utterly and stupendously Not Right he is for him. And really, Derek doesn’t know when the hell he fell in love with Stiles or why it happened because love is something that happens to other people with, like, _things to offer_ , and Derek doesn’t have anything to offer to a boy like Stiles who has a lot of potential and so much life left to live.

And christ, it’s not like Derek’s that much older than Stiles, but he’s been through way too much shit to drag Stiles down too. Stiles could Be Something, and Derek is Damaged, and that’s not something that can be changed, not least because the alliteration sounds too good to try.

Derek supposes he is a raindrop, and no raindrop is exempt from falling, so he fell (and he wonders why they call it falling in love, because it’s more like stumbling and falling flat on your face); but if he is a drop, that means Stiles eventually won’t notice him in his ocean. And Stiles _is_ the fucking ocean, Derek is the shore, ever distant, and sometimes the tides of Stiles roll in, cover him, wash him clean of all the things he is and ever was and ever had to be afraid of, but all tides must roll back out eventually.

Stiles is a riot of colour, the ever bright opposite to Derek’s shades of gloomy grey. Derek is the cobwebs in the corner, and Stiles… well, fuck, Stiles is the summer sunshine streaked across the bed in the mornings, the mornings he can never stay for because his dad would capital-K-Kill him if he ever even found out that Derek and Stiles were breathing the same air, let alone laying hands on each other in a definitely-not-PG way.

But you know, in the end, Stiles' fingers fit with Derek’s. When they lay next to each other, it’s like they were made to. And when they kiss, there’s none of that awkward which-way-do-I-tilt-my-head shit, they just know. (And Derek wants to know where Stiles figured out how to kiss like _that_ because Derek thinks someone must’ve taught it to him and he is at once jealous and relieved; jealous because who the hell would lay claim to what Derek already claimed and relieved because when Stiles figures out that it won’t last forever, that it can’t, there will be someone there to kiss him the way he should be kissed.) 

So it’s good what they have, pretty damn flawless if Derek is truthful, because they are seamless together and maybe they don’t know each other as well as they could but for everything involving a bed (or sometimes a counter or a table or a chair, because Stiles is a lot of things but he’s not fussy), they are On The Same Level. And maybe that’s all he can hope for right now. Maybe Stiles loves him too, Derek doesn’t really know, hasn’t actually asked, but it seems like it with the way Stiles believes that all roads lead to Derek. But at the very least, Stiles is definitely fascinated and fixated, and even if Derek thinks he should probably just be frustrated because Derek is just badwrongimperfect, he’ll take what he can get. After all, Stiles hasn’t left forever, not just yet.


End file.
